They say journalists should be objective. As I am a twenty-one-year-old college student, you’ll have to forgive me for falling short of this ideal. Today I write not as an impartial judge but as a girl deeply in love. Long past the honeymoon phase, Fable Bakery has set up camp in my heart. The sixty-seventh pastry feels just like the first.
I have reason to believe that Fable fever is a genetic condition. When I went home for Christmas this year, I brought back a box of their mince pies for my father as you can’t get them in Germany. Don’t get me wrong, my father was happy to see me. However, there’s a strong argument to be made that the joy associated with my arrival was eclipsed by the mince pies. It looks like the price of my father’s heart is 3,50€. Very affordable.
Introducing Fable
But what exactly is the subject of my affection? Fable has been in its current form since the end of November 2022, when it moved into the front of Sprout’s Dawson Street location, dangerously close to campus. Sprout issued an offer for a bakery to operate within their location and share the kitchen facilities with them. With their Midas touch, Elyse Clarke and Kate O’Sullivan managed to eliminate the competition. This delicious symbiosis enabled the team to go from selling at markets two days a week to a city-centre location in a matter of months. The Fable team is comprised of two part-time and three full-time workers. In Elyse’s words, “they’re good eggs”. All of their employees have been with them since the start.
This delicious symbiosis enabled the team to go from selling at markets two days a week to a city-centre location in a matter of months.
For context, last semester I had this concerning phase where I’d go on a walk every morning at 7 am. Trying to take shelter from a storm, I decided to take refuge in Fable and have a coffee while I was at it. I got chatting with the lovely woman behind the till and found out that she was one of the co-founders. Falsely, I had always assumed that Fable belonged to Sprout. Naturally, when I met Elyse, I practically begged her for an interview. They say you should never meet your heroes, but I decided to take my chances.
Aside from their coffees, Fable Bakery sells a range of pastries as well as an almond cake and a sea salt and chocolate cookie. Elyse’s favourite is the almond bun while Kate tends to go for the sundried tomato pastry. I myself am 70% water and 30% almond cake at this stage. An abundance of delicious pastries is a challenge to be discussed more. I was told that the front-of-house staff all participated in the lesser-known No Bun January. I did the reverse.
Work-life balance as bakery owners
When asked how the work-life balance is when you own a bakery, Kate laughs. She remarks a definite improvement from their state a year ago. Elyse adds that owning a bakery is “not the job for glamour and looking rested”. Their lightning-fast transition, while great for business, also brought its unique set of challenges. Reminiscing about the first few months on Dawson Street, the co-founders remark on the incredibly high stress levels they were subject to. “This time last year, we were broken women”, Kate explains. Elyse adds: “We’re learning…slowly”. While they love a good pint, you are unlikely to run into the two of them in Coppers. Fable Bakery’s morning shifts start at 4 am. Kate remarks “if you’re going on a mad night out, you’ll be suffering for days”. “But sometimes you do it because you have to have a life”, Elyse explains.
This time last year, we were broken women
Cooking as creative rest
During our conversation, Elyse said that she developed her love for baking during Covid. Confined to her home with a job she didn’t particularly enjoy, she started baking during the days while on Zoom. Baking became the primary form of creative rest and expression. I was curious to hear about how this relationship changed now that this hobby has been monetized, making it a job and a very demanding one at that.
The co-owners agree that they no longer bake at home to calm down. However, they do say that they still find solace in cooking. When baking, a lot more can go wrong if you don’t follow basic principles. Cooking on the other hand is less prescriptive and requires less precision, making it uniquely suitable to unwind. However, they view the distinction between cooking and baking in the business realm as quite different. Kate admits that the intensity of restaurant service wouldn’t have suited her. She finds a bakery more therapeutic as you’re able to make the food in advance rather than in real time.
Flavour development
Fable Bakery has several permanent pastries to offer. However, they do occasionally change flavours around. About a year ago, they agreed on a bun filled with cream in the middle as a format. Some sort of jam or curd is used as the base. The cream is essentially the same every time but they’ll change the flavours. The whole thing is then topped off with something crunchy. The current flavour is rhubarb and I am yet to get my hands on it. The co-owners try to follow the seasons with their flavours which is not only ecological but also economical. Intuitively, this proves to be more difficult in winter as seasonal produce is limited. However, these seasonal difficulties are eclipsed by the Christmas mince-pie-madness.
As with all things in life, flavour development can go horribly wrong. Elyse reminisces about one such occasion when she was experimenting with a lemon and rosemary bun and slightly overused the latter. Her friend tasted the bun and kindly informed Elyse that the pastry tasted ‘like a roast dinner’. As this, surprisingly, wasn’t the goal, the proportions had to be amended.
Apart from them getting bored of flavours, this ingredient-changing approach also allows the team to cope better with their limited kitchen space. As pastry is very bulky, they aren’t able to sell as many options as they’d like. Most products now are based on the same type of pastry and are simply different iterations of it. Sharing a space with Sprout, while beneficial, obviously restricts creative freedom. One product the team would love to make is bread, but they simply don’t have the necessary capacity at this point. Switching up the flavours of their pastries enables them to maximise creative expression given these constraints.
Talking to Kate and Elyse makes their ambition and dedication to their business evident. I hope for my benefit as well as my fellow students’ that their future is long and prosperous. Humbly, Kate says “we’re just trying our best”.
